Accra, Dec 21 (IANS): India has taken the first place as Nigeria's major export destination with earnings of $2.02 billion from the sale of crude oil, representing 17.5 per cent of the country's total export for the third quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
For the 2014-15 financial year, the Indian High Commission said, the country imported $13.53 billion worth of crude and petroleum products $13.96 billion in 2013-14.
"Bilateral trade between India and Nigeria in 2014-15 stood at $16.36 billion, which was two percent less compared to the previous year's figure of $16.98 billion," the high commission added.
It said India's exports to Nigeria have grown gradually during the last few years - from $1.08 billion in 2007-08 to $2.68 billion in 2014-15. Nigeria is India's largest trading partner in Africa and India is the largest trading partner of Nigeria globally
From the NBS figures, Netherlands is the second major export destination with $1.2 billion representing 10.5 percent, followed by Spain with $1.04 billion representing 9.1 percent, the NBS said.
The NBS said the value of the nation's merchandise exports totaled $11.58 billion in the third quarter of 2015 and represented a decrease of $1.59 billion or 12.1 percent, over the previous year's figure of $13.17 billion.
The decline was attributed to a fall in crude oil exports by $1.85 billion or 18.8 percent over the preceding quarter. "Nevertheless, the structure of exports is still dominated by crude oil, which contributed $7.99 billion or 69.1 percent to the value of total domestic exports in 2015. Natural liquefied gas recorded $1.31 billion of the total export value during the period under review," the NBS added.
Nigeria's total external merchandise trade decreased by $1.67 billion to $1.9 trillion in the third quarter of this year.
It attributed the decline to a $320.6 billion or 12.1 percent decline in the value of exports as well as imports decline of 17.4 billion or 1.0 percent against the levels recorded in the preceding quarter.